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DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
IN THE
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
PARSON CAPEN HOUSE, TOPSFIELD
Built in 1683
Domestic Life
in
NEW ENGLAND
in the
Seventeenth Century
A Discourse
Delivered in the Lecture Hall of the
Metropolitan Museum of Art in New
York City, it being one of a
Series designed to mark
the Opening of the
American Wing
By GEORGE FRANCIS DOW
TOPSFIELD, MASSACHUSETTS: Printed
for the Author at The Perkins Press,
just off the Main Street, 1925.
COPYRIGHT, 1925, GEORGE FRANCIS DOW
FIVE HUNDRED COPIES PRINTED
THE PREFACE
THE publication of the following paper in its present
form, became possible when the Trustees of the Met-
ropolitan Museum of Art found it necessary to aban-
don their intention to publish a volume containing the
lectures given on the occasion of the opening of the Amer-
ican Wing. The other lectures delivered in the course
were devoted to the architecture and arts of New England
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries and it
therefore seemed fitting that seme account of the domestic
life of the period should also have a presentation. Within
the limitations of time and space it was only possible to
touch lightly upon so far-reaching a subject and the reader
will soon discover that the following pages may be some-
what over-loaded with facts gleaned from original records.
It also should be borne in mind that the public records that
have come down to us preserve a chronicle of the offences
of the day and generation while the uneventful lives of the
honest and the just frequently rest in oblivion.
The evil that men do lives after them
The good is oft interred with their bones.
Nevertheless, there were fully as many sinners as saints
living within the control of the Puritan autocracy in the
Massachusetts Bay and it is to be hoped that the contem-
poraneous data here presented may aid in bringing about
a readjustment of values in the mind of some reader.
ILLUSTRATIONS
Parson Capen House, Topsfield Frontispiece
Front Door of Capen House 2
Front Entry and Stairs of Capen House 4
Overhang of the Capen House 6
Parlor of the Capen House 8
John Ward House, Salem 12
Parlor of Ward House 16
Kitchen of Ward House 20
Dresser in Kitchen of Ward House 24
Wellcurb and Sweep, Ward House 28
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
IN THE
SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND IN
THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
TO PICTURE the life in the homes of the colonists in
the years immediately following the settlement would
require many screens. Then as now life had its con-
trasts and utmost poverty existed but shortly removed from
comparative wealth. In 1657 an apprentice to a stone-mason
in the town of Newbury, Massachusetts, testified that it
was a long while before "he could eate his master’s food,
viz. meate and milk, or drink beer, saying that he did not
know that it was good, because he was not used to eat such
victualls, but to eate bread and water porridge and to drink
water.”* A few miles away, in the town of Ipswich, lived
Madam Rebecka Symonds, writing in her sixtieth year to
her son in London to send her a fashionable "lawn whiske,”
for her neckwear. In due time he replied that the "fashion-
able Lawn whiske is not now worn, either by Gentil or
simple, young or old. Instead where of I have bought a
shape and ruffles, which is now the ware of the gravest as
well as the young ones. Such as goe not with naked necks
ware a black wifle over it. Therefore, I have not only
Bought a plaine one y’t you sent for, but also a Luster one,
such as are most in fashion.” The dutiful son also pur-
chased for his mother’s wear a feather fan ; but he writes,
to her "I should also have found in my heart, to have let it
alone, because none but very grave persons (and of them
very few) use it. Now ’tis grown almost as obsolete as Rus-
sets, and more rare to be seen than a yellow Hood.” When
*Essex County Quarterly Court Records, Vol. II, p. 28
(i)
2
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
the feather fan reached Ipswich it was found to have a
silver handle and with it came "two tortois fans, 200 need-
les, 5 yds. sky calico, silver gimp, a black sarindin cloak,
damson leather skin, two women’s Ivorie Knives, etc.”*
Fine clothing surrounded itself with fine furnishings,
according to the standards of the period, and as the wealth
of the Colonies increased with the successful exportation of
fish, lumber, beaver, and peltry, it supplied them with all
kinds of luxuries and refinements to be found in the shops
of London, Plymouth, or Bristol. The ships were crossing
frequently and the Colonies kept pace with the mother
country much as the country follows the city at the present
time. All the while, however, primitive living and also
poverty existed everywhere. The inventories of numerous
estates show meagre household furnishings, and many
families of eight or more persons lived in houses only
eighteen by twenty-four feet in size, possibly with a shed
attached. Alexander Knight, a pauper in a Massachu-
setts town, was provided in 1659 with a one-story house
sixteen feet long and twelve feet wide having a thatched
roof and costing only £6 to build, which no doubt was
typical of the simple dwellings occupied by the poorer
colonists in the early days following the settlement.
When Governor Winthrop arrived at Charlestown in
1630 with the first great emigration he found a house or
two and several wigwams — rude shelters patterned after
the huts built by the Indians — and until houses could be
erected in Boston many lived in tents and wigwams, "their
meeting-place being abroad under a Tree.” Deacon Bar-
tholomew Green, the printer of the Boston News-Letter ,
related that when his father arrived at Boston in 1630,
"for lack of housing he was vain to find shelter at night
in an empty cask,” and during the following winter many
of the poorer sort still continued to live in tents through
lack of better housing.
* Waters, Ipswich in the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
PARSON CAPEN HOUSE, TOPSFIELD
Front Door
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
3
There is a wide-spread misconception that the colonists
on reaching New England proceeded immediately to build
log houses in which to live. Historians have described
these log houses as chinked with moss and clay and as
having earth floors, precisely the type of house built on the
frontier and in the logging camps at a much later period.
A well-known picture of Leyden street, at Plymouth, shows
a double row of log houses reaching up the hillside, which
the Pilgrims are supposed to have constructed. In point
of fact, no contemporary evidence has been found that
supports the present-day theory. The early accounts of
what took place in the days following the settlements along
the coast are full of interesting details relating to day-by-day
happenings but nowhere do we find allusion to a log house
such as modern historians assume existed at that time.*
What happened at the Plymouth Colony after the May-
flower came to anchor? The wind blew very hard for two
days and the next day, Saturday, December 23, 1620, as
many as could went ashore : "felled and carried timber, to
provide themselves stuff for building,” and the following
Monday "we went on shore, some to fell timber, some to
saw, some to rive, and some to carry ; so no man rested all
that day.”t Bradford writes "that they builte a forte with
good timber” which Isaac de Rasieres described in 1627 as
"a large square house, made of thick sawn planks, stayed
with oak beams.” The oldest existing houses in the Ply-
mouth Colony are built in the same manner and some half
dozen or more seventeenth-century plank houses may yet
be seen north of Boston. Moreover, when the ship Fortune
sailed from Plymouth in the summer of 1621 part of her
lading consisted of "clapboards and wainscott,” showing
clearly that the colonists soon after landing had dug saw
pits and produced boards in quantity suitable for the con-
struction of houses and for exportation.
*In the Delaware settlement houses of logs split through the middle or
hewed square were built “according to the Swedish mode.”
f Mourt’s Relation, Boston, 1841.
4
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
In the summer of 1623 Bradford mentions the ’'building
of great houses in pleasant situations” and when a fire broke
out in November of the following year it began in "a shed
yt was joyned to ye end of ye storehouse, which was wattled
up with bowes.” It will be seen that this shed was not
crudely built of logs or slabs but that its walls were wattled
and perhaps also daubed with clay, in precisely the same
manner with which these colonists were familiar in their
former homes across the sea. An original outer wall in
the old Fairbanks house at Dedham, Massachusetts, still
has its "wattle and daub” constructed in 1637. What can
be more natural and humanly probable than to find English
housewrights who had learned their trade overseas, build-
ing houses and outbuildings on this side of the Atlantic in
the same manner they had been taught through a long
apprenticeship in their former homes ? Can we of today
assume that they, upon the spur of the moment, invented
a new type of building — a log house — a construction they
had never seen in England — a building also unknown to
the Indians?
The houses of the Indians were "verie little and homely,
being made with small Poles pricked into the ground, and
so bended and fastened at the tops, and on the side they
are matted with Boughes and covered with Sedge and old
mats.”* These were called "wigwams” and as they were
easily constructed and the materials were readily at hand
many of the poorer colonists built for themselves imitations
of these rude huts of the Indians. Governor Winthrop
records in his "Journal,” in September, 1630, that one Fitch
of Watertown had his wigwam burnt down with all his
goods, and two months later John Firman, also of Water-
town, lost his wigwam by fire.
Thomas Dudley writing to the Countess of Lincoln, in
March, 1631, relates: "Wee have ordered that noe man
shall build his chimney with wood nor cover his house
with thatch, which was readily assented unto, for that
*Higginson, New-Englands Plantation London, 1630.
PARSON CAPEN HOUSE, TOPSFIELD
Front entry and stairs
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
5
divers houses have been burned since our arrival (the fire
always beginning in the wooden chimneys) and some Eng-
lish wigwams which have taken fire in the roofes with
thatch or boughs.”* It was Dudley who was taken to task
by the Governor in May, 1632, "for bestowing so much cost
on wainscotting his house and otherwise adorning it,” as
it was not a good example for others in the beginning of a
plantation. Dudley replied that he had done it for warmth
and that it was but clapboards nailed to the walls. A few
months later this house caught fire "the hearth of the Hall
chimney burning all night upon the principal beam.”
The frequent references to the English wigwam seem to
indicate that some such temporary construction was usual
among many of the colonists at the outset. Settlers were
living at Salem as early as 1626 and Endecott, with a con-
siderable immigration, arrived in 1628. Marblehead, just
across the harbor, was settled early and yet when John
Goyt came there in 1637, he "first built a wigwam and lived
thar till he got a house.”t The rude buildings also put up
by the planters at Salem must have been looked upon at
the time as temporary structures for they had all disap-
peared before 16614 The town clerk of Woburn, Massa-
chusetts, writing in 1652, mentions the rude shelters of the
first settlers "which kept off the short showers from their
lodgings, but the long rains penetrated through, to their
grate disturbance in the night season : yet, in these poor
wigwams, they sing Psalms, pray and praise their God, till
they can provide them homes, which ordinarily was not
wont to be with many till the Earth, by the Lord’s blessing,
brought forth bread to feed them, their wives and little
ones.” ||
"Before you come,” wrote Rev. Francis Higginson, the
first minister at Salem, "be careful to be strongly instruct-
*Force’s Tracts, Washington, 1838.
f Essex County Quarterly Court Records, Vol. VI, p. 363.
%Essex County Deeds, Book V, leaf 107.
|| Johnson, Wonder Working Providence, London, 1654.
6
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
ed what things are fittest to bring with you for your more
comfortable passage at sea, as also for your husbandry oc-
casions when you come to the land. For when you are
once parted with England you shall meete neither markets
nor fayres to buy what you want. Therefore be sure to
furnish yourselves with things fitting to be had before you
come : as meale for bread, malt for drinke, woolen and
linnen cloath, and leather for shoes, and all manner of car-
penters tools, and a great deale of iron and steele to make
nails, and locks for houses, and furniture for ploughs and
carts, and glasse for windows, and many other things which
were better for you to think of there than to want them
here.”* Elsewhere the good pastor set down "A catalogue
of such needfull things as every Planter doth or ought to
provide to go to New England” in which he enumerated
the necessary victuals per person for the first year, viz :
"8 Bushels of meale, 2 Bushels of pease, 2 Bushels of
Otemeale, 1 Gallon of Aquavitae, 1 Gallon of Oyle, 2 Gal-
lons of Vinegar, 1 Firkin of Butter; also Cheese, Bacon,
Sugar, Pepper, Cloves, Mace, Cinnamon, Nutmegs and
Fruit.”
The household implements listed were: — ”1 Iron pot, 1
Kettel, 1 Frying pan, 1 Gridiron, 2 Skellets, 1 Spit, Wooden
Platters, Dishes, Spoons and Trenchers.”
Clothing, arms, and tools of all kinds of course must be
taken and the natural resources of New England and the
fruits of their husbandry and of the sea were expected to
supply the rest of those things necessary to life and com-
fort. Those who settled along the shore line north of Bos-
ton found much "fat blacke earth” that yielded bountiful
crops. The soil to the southward of Boston Bay was light-
er and less productive, but the valley of the Connecticut
was found to be of unsurpassed richness.
Pastor Higginson wrote enthusiastically of the natural
abundance of the grass that "groweth verie wildly with a
great stalke” as high as a man’s face and as for Indian
*Higginson, New-Englands Plantation, London, 1630.
PARSON CAPEN HOUSE, TOPSFIELD
Overhang and one of the "drops”
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
7
corn — the planting of thirteen gallons of seed had produced
an increase of fifty-two hogsheads or three hundred and
fifty bushels, London measure, to be sold or trusted to the
Indians in exchange for beaver worth above £300. Who
would not share the hardships and dangers of the frontier
colony for opportunity of such rich gain ?
But the housewives in the far-away English homes were
more interested in the growth of the vegetable gardens in
the virgin soil, and of these he wrote : "Our turnips, par-
snips and carrots are here both bigger and sweeter than is
ordinary to be found in England. Here are stores of pum-
pions, cucumbers, and other things of that nature I know
not. Plentie of strawberries in their time, and penny-royall,
winter saverie, carvell and water-cresses, also leeks and
onions are ordinary.” Great lobsters abounded weighing
from sixteen to twenty -five pounds and much store of bass,
herring, sturgeon, haddock, eels, and oysters. In the for-
ests were several kinds of deer ; also partridges, turkeys,
and great flocks of pigeons, with wild geese, ducks, and
other sea fowl in such abundance "that a great part of the
Planters have eaten nothing but roast-meate of divers
Fowles which they have killed.”
These were some of the attractive natural features of
the new colony in the Massachusetts Bay, as recounted by
the Salem minister. Of the hardships he makes small men-
tion, for his aim was to induce emigration. There was
much sickness, however, and many deaths. Higginson
himself lived only a year after reaching Salem. The break-
ing up of virgin soil always brings on malaria and fever.
Dudley wrote "that there is not an house where there is not
one dead, and in some houses many. The naturall causes
seem to bee in the want of warm lodgings, and good dyet
to which Englishmen are habittuated, at home ; and in the
suddain increase of heate which they endure that are
landed here in somer * * * those of Plymouth who landed
in winter dyed of the Scirvy, as did our poorer sort whose
howses and bedding kept them not sufficiently warm, nor
8
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
their dyet sufficiently in heart.”* Thomas Dudley wrote
this in March, 1631. He explained that he was writing
upon his knee by the fireside in the living-room, having as
yet no table nor other room in which to write during the
sharp winter. In this room his family must resort "though
they break good manners, and make mee many times forget
what I would say, and say what I would not.”
But these hardships and inconveniences of living which
the New England colonists met and overcame differ but
little from those experienced in every new settlement.
They have been parallelled again and again wherever
Englishmen or Americans have wandered. In a few years
after the coming of the ships much of the rawness and
discomfort must have disappeared, certainly in the early
settlements, and comparative comfort must have existed in
most homes. If we could now lift the roof of the average
seventeenth-century house in New England it is certain
that we should find disclosed not only comfortable condi-
tions of living but in many instances a degree of luxury
with fine furnishings that is appreciated by few at the
present time. And this can now be shown by means of
the itemized inventories of estates that were carefully
made, listing the contents of a house, room by room, and
enabling us to visualize the interiors of the homes in which
lived the pioneers of New England.
Among the early settlements made in the Colony of the
Massachusetts Bay was one at Agawam, now the town of
Ipswich. The news had reached Boston that the French
were pushing their settlements westward along the coast,
bringing with them "divers priests and Jesuits,” which so
alarmed the Governor and Council that it was decided to
forestall the French and hasten the planting of new towns
north of Boston. The first move was to send the Governor’s
son John, with twelve others, to establish themselves at
Agawam. There were no roads and so they sailed along
the coast in a shallop and took possession of the town site
*Force’s Tracts, Washington, 1838.
PARSON CAPEN HOUSE, TOPSFIELD
The Parlor
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
9
in March, 1633. Their families and other settlers soon
followed and the increase of population was such that in
August, 1634, the Court of Assistants decreed that the
place be called Ipswich, after old Ipswich in England, "in
acknowledgment of the great honor and kindness done to
our people, who took shipping there.”
Three months later, in November, 1634, one John Dilling-
ham arrived in Ipswich and the selectmen granted him six
acres of land on which to build a house. He was from
Leicestershire and with his wife and daughter had come
over in the fleet with Winthrop in 1630, and remained in
Boston until he removed to Ipswich. Life in the frontier
settlement was too severe for him and he died during the
next winter. On July 14, 1636, his widow, Sarah, made her
"last will and testament” being in "perfect memory though
my body be weake & sick” and a few days later she too
was dead, leaving her orphaned daughter to be cared for
by Richard Saltonstall and John Appleton, under the direc-
tion of the Quarterly Court. And this was not at all diffi-
cult for John Dillingham had left a "goodly estate,” for the
times. This Dillingham home has been selected for analy-
sis because it is one of the earliest estates in the Colony of
which we have exact and detailed information, a number
of documents relating to it having been preserved among
the miscellaneous papers in the Massachusetts State
Archives.* Moreover, it shows the furnishings and equip-
ment of a settler living in a town of only two years growth
from the wilderness.
The Dillingham homestead consisted of a house of two
rooms and outbuildings with thirty acres of upland, sixty
acres of meadow, i. e., grass land, and six acres of planting
ground near the house, of which four acres were planted
with corn. Apple trees and other fruits were fenced off in
the garden. For livestock there was a mare, three cows,
two steers, two heifers, four calves, and four pigs. There
was an indentured servant, Thomas Downs, to help culti-
* Massachusetts Archives, Vol. 15B, leaves 59-67.
10
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
vate the land and care for the stock, and a maid, Ann
Towle, who not only helped with the housework but also
worked in the fields. "She hath been a faithful servant,”
wrote Richard Saltonstall, executor of the estate, "and
though she was discharged by her mistress a little before
her time was out, yet it may be borne by the estate, con-
sidering her diligence.” Ann had come over in the ship
Susan and Ellen, which arrived in April, 1635. Her pass-
age cost £5.
The Dillinghams occupied a good social position in the
youthful settlement but their two-room house did not con-
tain any really fine furniture. The parlor was also used
as a bedroom, a practice which was common everywhere
in the seventeenth century. It had two bedsteads valued
at £1. 6. 8. ; a cupboard, 10s.; a sea chest, 10s. ; two "joyned
Chaires, ” 5s. ; a round table, 7s. ; a deske, 4s. ; and a
band box, 2s. There was also a large nest of boxes valued
£2. and a small nest of boxes worth only three shillings.
The feather beds, boulsters, and pillows on each bed were
valued at about twice as much as a bedstead and the
coverlets averaged about £1. a piece. There were flaxen
sheets for Mrs. Dillingham’s bed and coarse sheets for the
beds of the maid and the indentured servant. A warming-
pan bears silent testimony to the cold of the winter season.
Another bedstead valued at only three shillings may have
been in the garret and occupied by Ann Towle, the maid.
A chest stood in the kitchen — more generally spoken of at
that time as "the hall,” in accordance with the English
usage— and two boxes, probably used for storage and also
for seats. That was all the furniture listed in the kitchen
that was considered of any value. The tables, stools,
benches, shelving, or other furnishings seemingly neces-
sary to housekeeping at that time either did not exist or
were so crude in construction as to have little or no value
in estimating the estate. We find five cushions, however,
valued at fifteen shillings.
Mrs. Dillingham died possessed of a few really fine fur-
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
11
nishings — possibly treasured ancestral pieces — for she
bequeathed a silver bowl to the wife of Richard Saltonstall,
and to the wife of John Appleton she gave a silver porringer.
It would be extremely interesting today to know what has
become of these two pieces of Colonial silver. No other
silver is mentioned but on shelving in the kitchen rested
40 1/2 pounds of pewter valued at £2. 14. 0. As a pewter
plate of the time weighs nearly two pounds and a platter
much more the supply of pewter for the table was not
large. Wooden plates, trenchers, and bowls are not men-
tioned, but there were twenty-five pewter saucers, six
porringers, seven spoons, and five shillings worth of knives.
As for table forks, they were practically unknown in the
Colony at that time. Governor Winthrop brought over a
fork in 1630, carefully preserved in a case, which is sup-
posed to be the first and only table fork in the Colony in
the earliest days of the settlements. Knives, spoons, and
fingers, with plenty of napery, met the demands of table
manners in the seventeenth century.
The large fireplace in the kitchen had its usual equip-
ment of pothooks, fire shovel and tongs, gridiron, trivet,
and bellows, and beside it was an old dark lantern valued
at only two shillings. There were iron pots, kettles, skil-
lets and ladles ; a brass pot and a mortar. There was a
frying-pan with a hole in it and in a box were kept '’bullets,
hinges and other smale things.” Two beer vessels were
listed ; a case of bottles, two jugs, three pans, a tray, and
two baskets. Such was the simple equipment of the Dil-
lingham kitchen., There were plenty of table-cloths and
napkins but no curtains at any of the windows. If a broom
were used it probably was made of birch twigs bound to-
gether around a long handle. Candlesticks do not appear
in the inventory and the only store of food mentioned (aside
from twenty-one new cheeses valued at £2. 16. 0.) was
seven bushels of rye, two firkins and a half of butter, a
half bushel of malt, six pounds of raisins, and some spice.
Our ancestors had a highly developed appreciation of the
12
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
value of condiments. In a Salem inventory at a somewhat
later date appear salt, pepper, ginger, cloves, mace, cinna-
mon, nutmegs, and allspice.
Mrs. Dillingham’s wearing apparel unfortunately is not
listed item by item, but given a total value of £5. 8. 4. Her
linen amounted to an almost equal sum. Some of her
deceased husband’s clothing is included in the invertory,
such as a coat with silver buttons, a red waistcoat, a suit of
serge and a black suit of serge unmade, a jacket of cloth,
and an old suit and cloak. Little Sara Dillingham, the
orphaned child, when sent to school to good wife Symonds
was supplied with "a stuffe petticoat & waskote” and four
"shifts with shewes’’ ; also a gown that cost £2. 10s. Per-
haps after a time she may have been able to read and fully
appreciate the books formerly in her loving father’s chest.
They were ‘ — "Perkins works in 3 volumes, Seaven Trea-
tises bound in 2 volumes, the Spowse Royall, the bruised
reade, & a little new testiment.’’
By way of contrast let us glance at the inventory of the
possessions of William Googe of Lynn, who died in 1646,
ten years after Mrs. Dillingham had willed that her body
be "decently buyried’’ and her child "religiously educated
if God give it life.’’ Googe left a house and twelve acres
of land and the total value of his possessions amounted to
but £28. 11. 7, with debts of £4. 9. 7. He left a widow and
three small children, and though dying in very lowly
circumstances he may have known better times, for John
Mascoll, the servant of Mr. Googe of Lynn, was fined in
1643, for neglecting the watch. The title of honor, "Mr.,”
was used but sparingly in those early days and usually
indicated a degree of social standing in the community.
Googe had been a soldier, for among his personal belong-
ings at death were a sword and belt, a musket and bando-
leers, and also gunpowder. One cow and four hogs com-
prised his entire livestock, and five bushels of wheat, ten
bushels of Indian corn, and flax in the bundle lay in the gar-
ret of his house, which was frugally furnished with a chest,
JOHN WARD HOUSE, SALEM
Built in 1684; showing overhanging second story, gable windows
and casement sash
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
13
a chair, an old chair, a stool, and a trunk. The family pro-
bably slept on pallet beds made up on the floor, for bedding
is listed but no bedsteads. They had a frying pan, a
gridiron, a skillet, a posnet, an earthen pot, six spoons, and
the following wooden ware, viz : "3 wood trayes & 3 wood
boules & 3 wood dishes ,1s. 9d.; one runlitt, Is.; paieles
& tubs, 3s.” Two bags valued at two shillings bring to a
close the list of the earthly possessions of William Googe
of Lynn. When the inventory was brought into court it
very properly gave the goods to the widow "for the bring-
ing up of her three small children.” So reads the record.
Doubtless there were many families in the Colony little
better conditioned, judging from the relatively small num-
ber of estates settled through the courts when compared
with the deaths and estimated population.
Googe’s house and twelve acres of land were valued at
only £8. This must have been a very simple, thatch-
roofed house of not more than two rooms, comparable with
the outlying farmhouse of Jacob Perkins that was burned
in Ipswich in 1668. And thereby hangs a tale. Master
Perkins and his wife had gone to town one summer after-
noon leaving the house in charge of Mehitable Brabrcoke,
a sixteen-year-old serving maid. We will let the ancient
document in the court files relate what happened.
"About 2 or 3 aclocke in the afternoone she was taking
tobacco in a pipe and went out of the house with her pipe
and gott upon the oven on the outside & backside of the
house (to looke if there were any hogs in the corne) and
she layed her right hand upon the thatch of the house (to
stay herselfe) and with her left hand knocked out her pipe
over her right arme upon the thatch on the eaves of the
house (not thinking there had been any fire in the pipe) and
imediately went downe into the corne feild to drive out the
hogs she saw in it, and as she was going toward the railes
of the feild . . . she looked back, and saw a smoke
upon her Mistress’ house in the place where she had
knocked out her pipe at v/hich shee was much frighted.”*
*Essex County Quarterly Court Records, Vol. IV, pp. 56-57.
14
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
The wife of a neighbor came running to the assistance
of Mehitable and afterwards testified that when she reached
the house she looked into both fireplaces and saw no ap-
pearance of fire, only a few brands nearly dead under a
great kettle hanging in the chimney. She also looked up
into the chamber through the floor boards that lay very
open on the side where the smoke was.
Could photographs more vividly picture the scene ? The
thatch-roofed farmhouse had two rooms on the ground
floor and a chimney with two fireplaces. An oven was
built on the backside probably having an opening inside
the kitchen fireplace in the usual manner. The house
was of but one story judging from the low roof that the
maid was able to reach when standing on the oven, and the
floor of the chamber in the loft had wide cracks between
the boards so that it was possible to look through from be-
low and see the under side of the roof. In similar homes
lived many a family in the early days in comparative com-
fort.
As for the careless Mehitable, she was brought before
the Quarterly Court on suspicion of wilfully setting the
house on fire; a serious offence, which as late as 1821, was
the cause of the execution in Salem of a sixteen-year-old
boy. Among those who deposed at her trial was a young
man who said that as he and she were going into the
meadow, before the fire, to make hay, she told him that
her mistress was angry with her, but she had "fitted her
now” for she had put a great toad into her kettle of milk. As
it turned out the Court ordered Mehitable to be severely
whipped and to pay £40 damages to her master Jacob Per-
kins. It now seems incredible that a serving maid of 1668
could ever get together so large a sum of money.
The settlers in the New England Colonies, unless persons
of wealth or possessed of large families, during the early
years lived generally in houses having but one room and
an entry-way on the ground floor. Above would be a
chamber — sometimes only a garret. As the family in-
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
15
creased in size and became more prosperous another room
would be added to the house on the other side of the entry
and chimney, making the structure a so-called two-room
house. Still later, with the need for more room, a leanto
would be built on the back of the house, thereby supplying
three additional rooms on the ground floor with a kitchen
in the middle. The earlier kitchen would then become a
living-room or ''sitting room” — in the New England phrase.
This earlier kitchen was usually called "the hall” during
the seventeenth century and in it centered the life of the
family. It was the room where the food was cooked and
eaten. There the family sat and there the indoor work
was carried on. A loom sometimes occupied considerable
space near a window and frequently a bed was made up in
a corner, on which the father of the family slept, and there
sometimes also he died.
The principal feature of this common room was its huge
fireplace in which hung pots and kettles suspended by
means of pot chains and trammels from the hardwood
trammel-bar or lug-pole that rested on wooden cross bars
and so bisected the wide flue in the chimney. These large
fireplaces in the early days were sometimes called "chim-
neys” in the vernacular of the time. They were generally
as wide as eight feet and a ten foot opening is not unknown.
This cavernous opening was spanned by a wooden lintel
— a stick of timber sometimes sixteen inches or more square,
and when exposed to a roaring fire, piled high with logs,
this became an element of danger, the charring wood
smoldering all night and setting fire to the house. The
trammel-bar in the flue also caught fire not infrequently
and gave way, allowing the pots and kettles to fall to the
hearth, bringing disaster to the dinner or to the curdling
milk and sometimes to those seated near. A trammel
stick in the house of Captain Denney gave way from this
cause and a large kettle filled with wort* fell down and
spilt the boiling liquid over four of his children who were
*Beer in the making.
16
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
sitting or lying on the hearth, some of them asleep, "which
scalded them in so terrible a manner, that one died present-
ly after, and another’s life is aispaired of” continues the
record.
"Here is good living for those who love good fires,” wrote
Higginson in his "New-Englands Plantation,” and under
the spell of the glowing flames, the bare, whitewashed walls,
the brown timbers and floor boards of the ceiling, the dress
of pewter, and the simple furnishings of the room, enriched
by the shadows, became a place full of cheer — a place
where privation and homesickness might be forgotten in
the glow of the bright firelight. On cold nights the short
bench inside the fireplace was a chosen place and the set-
tle, a long seat made of boards with a high back to keep
off the draft, was drawn before the fire and here sat the
older members of the family.
The larger kettles hanging in the fireplace, were of brass
and copper and some of them were of prodigious size. Hot
water was always to be had and these kettles also served
for the daily cooking, the cheese-making, soap-boiling, and
candle-dipping.
Much of the food of the average New Englander until
comparatively recent times consisted of corn-meal, boiled
meats and vegetables and stews. Every well-equipped
household had its spits for roasting and many had gridirons,
but the usual diet of the average family was "hasty pud-
ding,”— cornmeal mush and milk — varied by boiled meat
or fish served in the center of a large pewter platter and
surrounded by boiled vegetables. Baked beans and stewed
beans appeared on the table several times every week in
the year. Indian bannock, made by mixing corn meal with
water and spreading it an inch thick on a small board
placed at an incline before the fire and so baked, was a
common form of bread. When mixed with rye meal it be-
came brown bread and was baked in the brick oven with
the beans and peas.
The brick oven was a feature of every chimney. Some-
JOHN WARD HOUSE, SALEM
The Parlor
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
17
times in early days it was built partly outside the house
but so far as known the opening was always in the kitchen
fireplace. To reach it the housewife must stoop below
the oaken lintel and stand inside the fireplace, taking care
that her woolen skirts did not come near the flames. To
heat it for a baking, a fire was built inside, usually with
specially prepared pine or birch wood that had been split
and seasoned out of doors for a short time and then housed.
The oven was hot enough when the black was burned off
the top and the inside had become a uniform light color.
The fire and ashes were then taken out by means of a peel
— a long-handled, flat-bladed shovel made for the purpose
— and when dusted out with a broom made of hemlock
twigs it was ready for the brown bread, beans, peas, In-
dian pudding, pies, and rye drop cakes which were made
with rye meal, eggs and milk and baked directly on the
bricks in the bottom of the oven. Potatoes and eggs were
roasted in the ashes of the fireplace.
Between the years of 1635 and 1655, court records and
inventories of estates in the Massachusetts Bay Colony
mention the following articles of food :
Bacon, beef, butter, cheese, eggs, fowls, lamb, milk, mut-
ton, pork, suet, veal, wild game, and cod, herring, macker-
el, salmon and sturgeon.
Barley, beans, Indian beans, bran, cabbages, carrots,
chaff, corn, English corn, Indian corn, hops, Indian meal,
rye meal, oatmeal, oats, parsnips, pease, pumpions, rye,
squashes, turnips and wheat.
Apples, berries, fruit, honey, raisins, sugar and vinegar.
Biscuit, blewlman, bread, cake, malt, salad oil, porridge,
rye malt, yeast, salt and many kinds of spices.
Much of this food was raised on the farm and nearly
every family had its garden. Such articles of food as were
imported were usually obtained at the shops in the larger
towns by barter, as money was scarce. In 1651, a farmer
from the frontier town of Andover came through the woods
to Salem in his cart bringing twelve bushels of rye. He
18
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
stopped at a shop owned by George Corwin and from the
daybook kept at the time and still carefully preserved, we
learn that among other necessaries he carried home sugar
for the goodwife and for the children — a doll and a bird
whistle.
In the early years domestic animals were too valuable
to be killed for meat but game was plentiful and was roast-
ed by being trussed on iron spits resting on curved brack-
ets on the backs of the andirons. This, of course, required
constant turning to expose the roast on all sides in order
to cook it evenly — a task frequently delegated to a child.
A skillet would be placed beneath to catch the drippings.
Sometimes a bird was suspended before the fire by a twist-
ed cord that would slowly unwind and partly wind again,
requiring some one in frequent attendance to twist the
cord. Families of wealth possessed a "jack” to turn the spit.
This was a mechanism fastened over the fireplace and con-
nected with the spit by means of a pulley and cord. A heavy
weight suspended by a cord which slowly unwound, sup-
plied the power that turned the spit.
At night, on going to bed, the fire was carefully covered
with ashes in order to keep it for the next day. This was
called "raking up the fire.” If through poor judgment the
fire didn’t keep some one would go to a near neighbor to
borrow coals, or if this was inconvenient, resort was then
had to the tinder box. Tinder was made by charring linen
or cotton rags and the tinder box was kept in the niche on
the inside of the fireplace, made by leaving out a couple of
bricks.
In "the hall,” usually upon open shelves, but sometimes
upon a dresser, was displayed the pride of the housewife,
— the dress of pewter and lattin ware. "China dishes,”
imported by the East India Company or made in Holland,
were used sparingly during the early years of the colonies.
There was much earthenware and stoneware bottles and
jugs, but it was woodenware and pewter that were com-
monly used. When Lionel Chute died in 1645 he bequea-
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
19
thed his silver spoon to his son James.* It was the only
piece of silver in the house. Of pewter he died possessed
of fourteen dishes '"small and great,” eleven pewter salts,
saucers and porringers, two pewter candlesticks and a
pewter bottle. The widow Rebecca Bacon who died in
Salem in 1655, left an estate of £195. 8. 6., which included a
well-furnished house. She had brass pots, skillets, candle-
sticks, skimmers, a little brass pan, and an excellent supply
of pewter including ”3 large pewter platters, 3 a size lesse,
3 more a size lesse, 3 more a size lesse,” having a total val-
ue of £1. 16. She also had a pewter basin, six large pewter
plates, and six lesser, nineteen pewter saucers, two fruit
dishes, an old basin and a great plate, two candlesticks,
one large salt and a small one, two porringers, a great fla-
gon, one lesser, one quart, two pints and a half pint ; and
an old porringer. She also left "1 silver duble salt, 6 silver
spoones, wine cup & a dram cup of silver.”
Giles Badger of Newbury left to his young widow, a glass
bowl, beaker, and jug valued at three shillings ; three sil-
ver spoons valued at £1, and a good asssortment of pewter,
including "a salt seller, a tunell and a great dowruff.” The
household was also furnished with six wooden dishes and
two wooden platters. In other inventories appear unusual
items such as a pewter brim basin, pewter cullenders,
pewter beer cups, pans, and mustard pots. Pewter tank-
ards were common. There were new and old fashioned
candlesticks. Pewter salts came in three sizes and the
saucers were both small and large. In 1693, best London
pewter plates cost the Boston shopkeepers 9 1/2 pence per
pound in quantity.
The seventeenth century "hall” must have had little
spare room for its daily occupants, for in addition to its
table and chairs, its settle, stools and wash bench, the long
ago inventories disclose such chattels as powdering tubs
in which the salted meats were kept, the churn, barrels
containing a great variety of things, keelers and buckets,
* Probate Records of Essex County, Mass. Vol. I, p. 47.
20
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
bucking tubs for washing, and the various implements
used in spinning and weaving, washing and ironing, cook-
ing and brewing, and the making of butter and cheese.
In the chimney hung hams and bacon and suspended from
the ceiling were strings of dried apples and hands of seed
corn.
It is claimed by some that the floors were sanded. That
certainly was true at a later period but there are strong
elements of doubt as to the prevalence of this custom dur-
ing the seventeenth century. Sand, however, was used
freely with home-made soft soap, to scrub the floors which
were always kept white and clean, and whenever an early
house is restored or taken down sand is always found,
sometimes in considerable quantity, where it has sifted
down through the cracks between the floor boards. The
downstairs rooms had double floors but the chamber floors
were made of one thickness of boards with here and there
a knothole and frequently with cracks between the boards
through which the dust and dirt from above must have
sifted down upon the heads of those seated at dinner or en-
gaged in their daily tasks in the rooms below. Not only
does the structural evidence show this to be true but a
number of instances occur among the papers in Court files,
where witnesses have deposed as to what they had seen
and heard through the cracks in chamber floors. A grand-
son of Governor Endecott once fell a victim of two gossip-
ing sixteen-year old girls who had spent some time on their
knees peeping through the cracks in a chamber floor.
Capt. Richard More, the last survivor of the company on
the ’'Mayflower,1 ” late in life kept a tavern in Salem. He
was spied upon in this manner and eventually brought be-
fore the justices of the Quarterly Court to answer for his
evasion of the law set forth and maintained at that time.
The parlor, called "the foreroom” at a later time, was the
room where guests of station were received. The best bed
hung with curtains and valance and covered with a rug,
stood in a corner. In those days rugs were not used on
JOHN WARD HOUSE, SALEM
The kitchen showing roasting jack, settle, birch broom,
hands of seed corn, etc.
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
21
floors but as bed furnishings. Even the baby’s cradle had
its rug. Carpets, likewise, were too fine for wooden floors
and were used as table covers. Of bedsteads there were
many kinds, — high and low, canopy, close, corded, half-
headed, joined, side, standing, inlaid, and wainscott, and
slipped under the higher bedsteads during the daytime,
were trundle or "truckle” beds in which the children slept
at night. Lionel Chute, the schoolmaster, had an "old
darnkell coverlet” on his bed while some of his neighbors
possessed branched and embroidered coverlets and several
had coverlets made of tapestry.
Among the better families the parlor and chamber win-
dows had curtains hung from rods. In the parlor stood one
or more chests in which were stored the family clothing and
bedding, for closets did not exist in the seventeenth cen-
tury house. There were great chests and small chests, long
boarded and great boarded chests, chests with a drawer,
carved chests, wainscot chests, trunks, and boxes. A few
stools and chairs, a looking glass, a small table, and perhaps
a cupboard completed the furnishings of the well-supplied
parlor. In Capt. George Corwin’s best room there were
chairs with leather bottoms and straw bottoms, a clock val-
ued at £2, a screen having five leaves, a napkin press, and
a "Scriture or Spice box.” White calico curtains hung at
his chamber windows and the maid had a "Calico Cuberd
cloth” in her room. Parlor walls were whitewashed and
bare of ornament. The first families owned a portrait or
two in oils and here and there a map in unglazed frame
decorated a wall. The Puritan character did not v/arm to
the fine arts and austere living was the aim if not always
the achievement of the time.
The chambers in the second story must have been cu-
riously furnished rooms, containing a huddle of stores of
all descriptions. Henry Short, the town clerk of Newbury,
died in 1673 leaving a goodly estate valued at nearly £2000.*
He owned a negro slave and his house was large and well
* Probate Records of Essex County, Mass., Vol. II, p. 348.
22
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
furnished. There was an old parlor and a new parlor con-
taining beds, chests, chairs, trunks, and boxes. In the
chamber over the new parlor there was a good feather-bed
and bed clothing but no bedstead. Wool and yarn were
stored in this room together with boxes, tubs, some feath-
ers, and miscellaneous "lumber” — the phrase of the period
for odds and ends. The chamber over the kitchen, a com-
fortable room of course, in winter, had its bed and bedding,
also "5 hogsheds, 6 barrels, 5 Iron hoopes, a pair of stock-
cards, meale trough & other lumber, a parcell of old Iron,
a pike, a bed cord & other cordage.” Small wonder in
such a clutter that the rooms frequently had other tenantry
than the human occupants.
When Jasper Dankers arrived in Boston in 1680, the cap-
tain of the packet took him to his sister’s house where he
lodged. "We were taken to a fine large chamber,” he
writes, "but we were hardly in bed before we were shock-
ingly bitten. I did not know the cause, but was not able
to sleep. . . . My comrade who was very sleepy, fell asleep
at first. He tumbled about very much ; but I did not sleep
any the whole night. In the morning we saw how it was,
and were astonished we should find such a room with such
a lady.”*
With the present wide-spread belief in Puritan austerity
of character, there is associated a conception of a simplicity
of dress and manners. But the channels of information
by which present day beliefs have been shaped usually
have been ecclesiastical, and bias and convenient forget-
fulness have been factors in outlining the composition of
the picture. Human nature and human frailities were
much the same in the seventeenth century as at the present
time. In point of fact, our New England ancestors when
viewed as a body, are found to have had standards of liv-
ing far below those of today. The common speech was
gross in the extreme. Crowded living led to familiarity.
There was more drunkenness, profanity, loose living and
*Dankers, Journal of a Voyage to New York, Brooklyn, 1867.
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
23
petty crime in proportion to the population than at the
present time, and by no means did every one go to meeting
on Sunday. The ministers controlled the lawmaking body
and sumptuary laws were enacted which are enlightening.
Because of "newe and immodest fashions” the wearing of
silver, gold and silk laces, girdles and hat bands was pro-
hibited. It was the fashion at that time to slash the sleeves
so that a fabric of another color worn beneath would show
in an ornamental manner through the slash. The minis-
ters decreed that neither man nor woman should wear
clothing with more than one slash on each sleeve and an-
other on the back. "Cuttworks, inbroidered or needle
worke capps, bands & rayles,” were forbidden.* Ruffs and
beaver hats were prohibited, as was long hair. Binding
or small edging laces might be used, but the making or
selling of bone lace was penalized at the rate of five shillings
per yard.
But this didn’t change human nature and although from
time to time offenders were taken into court and punished,
the wearing of fine clothing fashioned after the London
mode continued and a few years later the ministers tried
their hand again. Any kind of lace was anathema and "no
garment shalbee made with short sleeves, whereby the
nakedness of the arme may bee discovered.” On the other
hand, large sleeves were forbidden, so the maids and good-
wives of the time must have been somewhat at a loss to
know how lawfully to fashion their clothes.
The minister at Ipswich grew so ill-tempered over the
ungodly state of the women in his town that he vented his
spleen as follows : — "When I hear a nugiperous Gentle-
dame inquire what dress the Queen is in this week, what
the nudius tertian of the Court, I look at her as the very
gizzard of a trifle, the product of a quarter of a cypher, the
epitome of nothing, fitter to be kickt, if she were of a kick-
able substance than either honoured or humoured.”t
* Records of the Mass. Bay Colony, Vol. I, p. 126.
fWard, The Simple Cobler of Aggawam, London, 1647.
24
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
The minister in the adjoining town, Rowley, actually cut
off his nephew from his inheritance because he wore his
hair long in the prevailing fashion. Later in the century
the offense of wearing long hair was forgotten in the un-
speakable sin of wearing wigs. The Great and General
Court again took a hand and in 1675 condemned "t he prac-
tise of men’s wearing their own or other’s hair made into
periwigs.” Judge Sewall in his Diary alludes to the custom.
In 1685 three persons were admitted to the Old South
Church in Boston. "Two wore periwigs,” comments the
Judge.
"1708, Aug. 20, Mr. Chievar died. The Wellfare of the
Province was much upon his Spirit. He abominated Peri-
wigs.”*
The Great and General Court at one time ordered that
no person should smoke tobacco in public under a penalty
of two shillings and six pence, nor in his own house with a
relative or friend. But everybody smoked who wanted to,
even the maids, and the repressive legislation in time met
the usual fate of similar efforts to restrain individual lib-
erty and manners.
It is sweet to fancy Priscilla at her spinning wheel wear-
ing the coif and nun-like garb of the Puritan maiden of the
poet and the artist. But the inventories of estates in the
early years of the Colony, as well as at a later time, furnish
evidence of a different character. The variety of fabrics
listed is amazing and holds its own with the modern de-
partment store. There are most of the well-known fabrics
of today, such as calico, cambric, challis, flannel, lawn,
linen, plush, serge, silk, velvet, and many others; and
there are also names that sound strangely in modern ears,
viz : cheney, darnex, dowlas, genting, inckle, lockrum, os-
sembrike, pennistone, perpetuana, sempiternum, stammell,
and water paragon.
As for dress, — the women wore bonnets, caps, silk hoods,
coifs, forehead cloths, ruffs, and whisks. Gowns, cloaks,
*Sewall’s Diary, Vol. II, p. 231.
JOHN WARD HOUSE, SALEM
Corner of the kitchen showing dresser with its "dress of
pewter,” wash bench, meal chest, wooden ware, etc.
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
25
mantles, and muffs are mentioned frequently ; as are many
kinds of lace and even fans and veils. Shawls and scarfs
were not unknown and there were gold, silver, and enam-
elled rings. At least one woman possessed a mask, and
stomachers were not uncommon. Tortoise shell combs
appear ; all well-to-do persons wore gloves, and as for shoes
— there were shoes with French heels, fall shoes, and those
with silver buckles. Even shoe-strings appear in the in-
ventories. There were silver, pewter, and steel buttons
and those of gympe, thread, and silk.
Laboring men wore leather and coarse fabrics and for
others there were suits, doublets, waistcoats and breeches.
Trousers are mentioned ; also a cane and periwigs. Of
caps and hats there were a number of kinds — felt, castor,
demi-castor, and even straw. Capt. George Corwin, a Salem
merchant, owned a cloth coat trimmed with silver lace, a
velvet coat, a tabby doublet, an old fashioned Dutch satin
doublet, four cloaks of various kinds, two pairs of golden
topped gloves, one embroidered pair, and a pair with black
fringe. He also took his walks abroad wearing silk stock-
ings, with a hat encircled by a silver band and carrying a
silver headed cane or a plate hilt rapier, according to fash-
ion. He possessed two silver watches. Who shall say that
the men and women of the New England colonies did not
dress well and live well in the early days according to their
means?
What was their conduct not only in their homes but in
their relations with their neighbors ? Did they live peace-
ably and work together in building up the settlements ?
Did they set up in the wilderness domestic relations exact-
ly like those they had abandoned over-seas ? It was a raw
frontier country to which they came and it is apparent that
at the outset they felt themselves to be transplanted Eng-
lishmen. So far as possible they lived the lives to which
they had been accustomed and they engrafted in their new
homes the manners and customs of the generations behind
them. Most of them fully recognized, however, that they
26
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
were not to return ; that they had cut loose from the old
home ties and it was not long before the necessities and
limitations of frontier life brought about changed condi-
tions in every direction. Politically, religiously and social-
ly, they were in a different relation than formerly in the
English parish life. Many of them, especially those some-
what removed from the immediate supervision of magis-
trate and minister, before long seem to have shown a ten-
dency to follow the natural bent of the frontiersman to-
ward independent thought and action. Their political
leaders made lav/s restricting daily life and action and their
religious leaders laid down rules for belief and conduct,
that soon were repellent to many. Civil and clerical records
are filled with instances showing an evasion of and even
contempt for the laws and rules laid down by the leaders
of their own choosing. Some of it doubtless was in the
blood of the men who had come in search of a certain indi-
vidual freedom of action, but much of it may be attributed
to frontier conditions and primitive living. There were
many indentured servants, and rough fishermen and sailors
have always been unruly. Simple houses of but few rooms
accommodating large families are not conducive to gentle
speech or modesty of manner nor to a strict morality.
The craving for land holding and the poorly defined and
easily removed bounds naturally led to ill feeling, assault,
defamation, and slander.
It has been stated frequently that in the olden times in
New England every one was obliged to go to church. The
size of the meeting houses, the isolated locations of many
of the houses, the necessary care of the numerous young
children, and the interesting side-lights on the manners of
the time which may be found in the court papers, all go to
show that the statement must not be taken literally. Ab-
sence from meeting, breaking the Sabbath, carrying a bur-
den on the Lord's Day, condemning the church, condemn-
ing the ministry, scandalous falling out on the Lord's Day,
slandering the church, and other misdemeanors of a similar
character were frequent.
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
27
A curious instance of Sabbath breaking occurred at
Hampton, N. H. in 1646. Aquila Chase and his wife and
David Wheeler were presented at court for gathering pease
on the Sabbath. They were admonished. The family
tradition has it that Aquila returned from sea that morn-
ing and his wife wishing to supply a delicacy for dinner,
fell into grave error in thus pandering to his unsanctified
appetite.
At the Feb. 29, 1648 session of the court held in Salem,
eight cases were tried. A Gloucester man was fined for
cursing, saying ''There are the brethern; the devil scald
them.” Four servants were fined for breaking the Sabbath
by hunting and killing a raccoon in the time of the public
exercise to the disturbance of the congregation. If the
animal had taken to the deep woods instead of staying near
the meeting house the servants might have had their fun
without paying for it. Then came a Marblehead case — a
man who had sailed his boat into the harbor loaded with
hay that he had brought from Gloucester. This was on
the Lord’s Day at the time when people were going to the
morning exercises. He, too, was fined. Nicholas Pinion,
who worked at the Saugus Iron Works, was presented for
absence from meeting four Lord’s Days together, "spending
his time drinking and prophanely,” and Nicholas Russell
of the same locality was fined for spending a great part
of one Lord’s Day with Pinion in drinking strong water and
cursing Pinion’s wife thereby causing jealously in the fam-
ily ; and the woman in question having broken her bond
for good behavior, was ordered to be severely whipped.
The other cases were for swearing, in which the above
named lady was included ; for being disguised in drink ;
and for living from his wife. And so the court ended.
Drunkenness was very common in the old days. Every
family kept on hand a supply of liquor and wine, and cider
was considered a necessity of daily living in the country,
where it was served with each meal and also carried into
the fields by the workers. It was stored in barrels in the
28
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
cellar and the task of drawing the cider and putting it on
the table usually fell to the younger members of the fam-
ily. A man would often provide in his will for the comfort
of his loving wife by setting aside for occupancy during
her life, one half of his house, with a carefully specified
number of bushels of rye, potatoes, turnips and other veg-
etables ; the use of a horse with which to ride to meeting or
elsewhere ; and lastly, the direction that annually she be
provided with a certain number of barrels of cider, — some-
times as many as eight.
Rev. Edward Holyoke, the President of Harvard College,
was in the habit of laying in each year thirty or more bar-
rels of cider as he had to provide for much entertaining.
Late in the winter he would draw off part of his stock and
into each barrel he would pour a bottle of spirit and a
month later some of this blend would be bottled for use on
special occasions.
As an example of life and manners in seventeenth cen-
tury New England, the ministerial experiences of Topsfield
may be cited. It is an inland town near Ipswich and was set-
tled in 1639. The first minister was the Rev. William Perkins
who had been a selectman and representative at Weymouth
and a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery
Company in Boston. Later he preached at Gloucester where
one of his flock was presented at court for unbecoming
speeches against Mr. Perkins, saying "if it were not for the
law, shee would never come to the meeting, the teacher was
so dead . . . affirming that the teacher was fitter to be a ladys
chamberman than to be in the pulpit.”* He removed to
Topsfield in 1656 and before long was collecting his salary
through the courts. Some of his flock retaliated and
brought him into court for drunkenness, when it appeared
that he had stopped at the Malden ordinary and called for
a cup of sack but goody Hill told him that he had had too
much already and Master Perkins replied "if you think I
am drunk let me see if I can not goe” and he went tottering
*Essex County Quarterly Court Records, Vol. I, p. 275.
^ * ^m- « V -
r^-^r-
M 4 fiaiiMi
m — zzz&z
WELLCURB AT THE JOHN WARD HOUSE
Showing wellsweep, wooden bucket and girl dressed
in the costume of the late 17th century
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
29
about the kitchen and said the house was so full of potts
and kettles that he could hardly go.
In 1663 a meeting house was built in Topsfield, and the
Rev. Thomas Gilbert, a Scotchman, supplanted Mr. Perkins.
The new minister also had a love for good wine and after
a time Mr. Perkins entered a complaint and it appears from
the records that one sacrament day Mr. Gilbert entertained
at dinner a number of the older men and women whose
homes were distant from the meeting house. He possessed
a golden cup and what was left of the sacramental wine
was drunk at dinner, the cup being passed around the table
at least twice, the minister drinking deeply with the not
unusual result, for he forgot to give thanks and sang a
psalm with lisping utterance. Mr. Gilbert was followed
in his pastorate by the Rev. Jeremiah Hobart, a Harvard
graduate, who, during his eight years stay in Topsfield, be-
came a familiar figure in the courts because of suits for
non-payment of salary, for cursing and swearing, and for a
damaging complaint for slander exhibiting much discredit-
able testimony. Then came the Rev. Joseph Capen and
during his pastorate of over forty years the town and church
enjoyed a peaceful growth interrupted only by the witch-
craft delusion of 1692 in which an attempt to appropriate
land of Topsfield men played an important part.
But manners and crimes vary with the centuries as do
dress and speech. In the year 1655, the following crimes
were penalized in the courts of the Massachusetts Bay
Colony: eavesdropping, meddling, neglecting work, naughty
speech, profane dancing, kissing, making love without con-
sent of friends, uncharitableness to a poor man in distress,
carelessness about fire, wearing great boots, etc., and a
few years later we find other strange misdemeanors, such
as abusing a mother-in-law, wicked speeches against a son-
in-law, kicking another in the street, leaving children alone
in the house, pulling hair, riding behind two fellows at
night (this was a girl, Lydia by name), sleeping in meeting
and dissenting from the rest of the jury.
30
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
With such minute supervision of the daily life of the
colonists it can readily be appreciated that it was an age
for gossiping, meddlesome interference with individual life
and liberty and that in the course of time nearly every one
came before the courts as complainant, defendant or witness.
There were few amusements or intellectual divisions and
they could only dwell on the gossip and small doings of
their immediate surroundings. But all the while there
was underlying respect for law, religion and the rights of
others. The fundamantal principals of human life were
much the same as at the present day, and men and women
lived together then as now and as they always will — with
respect and love.
AN ACCOUNT OF SUPPLIES FURNISHED BY
THE COMPANY OF THE MASSACHUSETTS
BAY TO REV. SAMUEL SKELTON, THE
MINISTER AT SALEM.
«
The following account of food, fabrics, household supplies
and equipment furnished by the Company of the Massa-
chusetts Bay to Rev. Samuel Skelton, the first minister at
Salem ; is of much economic interest. The emigrants sailed
from London about the middle of April, 1629 and reached
the harbor of Naumkeak (now Salem) on June 30th. Mr.
Skelton died Aug. 2, 1634 and this accounting may have
been made up after his death. It begins in 1629 at the
time of the departure from England and covers an indeter-
minate period. The increase of livestock over a period of
five years is described and this seems to indicate the period
of residence at Salem until his death.
It is enlightening to find that the Massachusetts Bay
Company seems to have maintained a company shop at
which supplies of all kinds might be obtained ; and it is a
matter for comment that the minister’s family was supplied
during the voyage and in the early days following the set-
tlement, with such luxuries as powdered sugar, salad oil,
castile soap and almonds, not to mention, also, a variety of
spices, such as pepper, cloves, mace, and nutmegs.
The original of this document may be seen in the Suffolk
County Court Files, Volume I.
Other interesting lists of all kinds of materials sent over
by the Company, may be found in the Company records
printed by the Commonwealth in 1853 (Vol. I, pp. 23-37) and
also by the American Antiquarian Society (Transactions,
Vol. Ill, pp. 5-30e).
(31)
32
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
Coppie of An Accompte of monies Mr Skelton is Cred-
itor viz.
An" 1629
Imprimis p so much wch should 1
haue bene paid him in England >
towards fitting him for ye voyadg j
Item for Charges att Tillbury, Cowes,
& Plimoth, being wind bound
Item p Twenty H p Annum for 3
years is ye some of
Item for on bushell of wheat flower
Ite. for one bushell of oatmeale
Ite. for one holland & 2 ordenary
Cheess
Ite. for xxH of powder sugar att
Ite. for one Loafe Cont 7n att Is 6d
Ite. for one sugar Loafe Cont 5“ att
P 7d p li.
Ite. 6n of pepper
Ite. Nutmeggs 4 oz
Ite. one oz. of Clovs, & one oz. of mace
Ite. iijH of starch
Ite. xiju of Rice
Ite. vj11 of Vntryed suett
Ite. one gall of aquavite
Ite. for one flitch of Bacon
Ite. Castle soape ixH att 8d p li
Ite. frute viz Rasons Corrants &
pruens
Ite. Safron ij oz
Ite. five qu of stronge water
Ite. Almonds iju at Is 2d
Ite. xv11 of tryed suett at 8d p. li
Ite. one gall of Sallert oyle
Ite. vj11 of Candles
Ite. v geese & ix ducks
li. s. d.
20-00-00
02-10-00
60-00-00
00-15-00
00-10-00
00-10-00
01-03-09
00-10-06
00-07-11
00-12-00
00-01-08
00-02-00
00-01-03
00-06-00
00-03-00
00-03-08
00-14-00
00-06-00
00-14-00
00-05-00
00-08-00
00-02-04
00-10-00
00-06-00
00-03-00
00-08-00
An" 1630 Ite. xij" of Butter att 00-08-00
Ite. vj potts of Butter Cont. vij“ p pott 01 - 08 - 00
Ite. ij Cheeses about x li a pc 00-11-08
Ite. half a firkin of butter of Mr Gibbs 00 - 17 - 06
Ite. one Third prt of a barrell of wl
biskett 00-10-00
Ite. one pott of honey viju wa‘ att 00 - 07 - 10
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
33
Ite. one pott of butter att
Ite. xu of Corrants att
Ite. [ ] Bacon
Ite. one doz of Candles
Ite. ij Cheeses att vjd p li
Ite. iij Cheeses att vij p. li
Ite. one porkett
Ite. xiju of tryed suett
Ite. vj gees & xij ducks
Ite. vj po : of powder suger about 20d
Ite. v po : of powder suger 18d
Ite. x11 of Loaf suger
Ite. Cloves & mace
Ite. ij oz of Nutmeggs js & Sinam° 16d
Ite. workmens wadges for Cutting
& bringing home wood against
winter about
li. s. d.
00-03-00
00-05-00
00-10-00
00-08-00
00-11-03
00- 17-09
01- 05-00
00-08-00
00-14-00
00-10-00
00- 07-06
01- 00-00
00-01-00
00-02-04
03-00-00
Suma tolis
105-18-11
Item ^ so much pd Mr Pearce*
for provisions of meale, pease,
Canvas, Carsey & etcr wth 3U
5s 9d after 25u Cent. & freight.
I say pd the some of
Ite. for 3 quarts of aquavite
Ite. for x11 of Rice att 5d
Ite. 10u of Butt[er] att
Ite. 4 Chees[es] att
Ite. 10 peeces of pork
Ite. more 20u of Butter
Ite. more 4 bushells Virginia Corne
Ite. soape 7s & vineger 4 gall° 8s &
lg1 2s
Ite. 2 pecke of w% salte att
12-15-01
00-03-09
00- 04-02
00-06-08
01- 03-04
00-11-08
00-10-00
02- 00-00
00-17-00
00:03:00
Sumis 18-14-08
And on the other syde the totall some of 105 - 18 - 11
Suma to ,is 124-13-07
*The master of the ship George Bonaventure in which Mr. Skelton came
over.
34
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
Now ye Increase
The first yeare next after the receipte of the 2 heiffers,
both the Calues miscaried, one about a quarter ould dyed,
the other neare upon a yeare ould lost by the woolves.
The second yeare there was a heiffer Calfe and a bull
Calfe, wch heiffer is now in my hands And the Bull Calfe
Mr Skelton sould att one yer and three quarters ould for
eight pounds.
The Therd yeare was which the be-
ginning of winter weare both eaten with the woolves.
Now since the three foresaid years, the next yeare after
was Twoe bull Cal vs, and an heiffer Calfe, the springe be-
fore Mr Skeltons death.
And This yeare since was Three bull Calues Twoe wher-
of are dead the one when it was about Twenty & twoe weeks
ould, the other since winter did begin. Now for the keep-
ing of the Catle wch should haue beene att the Companyes
Chardge, hath wholly lyen vpon vs.
Mr Skeltons account wth the Companie
It.
It.
It.
It.
It.
It
It.
It.
It.
It.
It.
It.
It.
It.
It.
Mr Skelton is D pr viz
li. s. d
14 yards of Dutch serge Recd att 02 - 05 - 09
17 yards of ffustian att
11 yards of wf English ieans
12 yards of Red p petuana
12 yards of Greene say
12 yards of yellow say
12 elns of lin [ torn ] men
14 elns Nouess [ torn ] llain
20 elns o[f loc] krum
20 elns stript [linsey] woolsye
[ ] yards [ torn ] buckrum
one peece of Noridg serg
20 elns of Lockerum
15 yards of wt fflannell
20 elns of Course Canvas
one pound of whalbone
01-07-00
00- 13-09
01- 16-00
01-13-00
01-13-00
00- 14-00
01- 17-04
01-05-10
01-09-04
00-05-03
00- 15-00
01- 05-10
00-15-00
01 - 04 [torn
0 [torn’
20-11-00
Item ^ so much pd Mr Renell
prt of Mr Pearce his bill, the some of 08 - 00 - 00
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
35
Item ^ 9U of Iron att 3d is
It. one syth
It. 'I? one fishing line
It. 30 pound ocum
It. W 2000 Nails 6d p C.
It. 600 Nails 10d p C.
It. $ 1 Reame of paper
Item, borrowed of Cp. Endicot of
ye Comp. 7 yrds of bays att 2s 6d
ffl yd is
halfe a elne of ffustian att
It. 2 yards & half of yellow Carsey
3s 4d
li. s. d.
00-02-03
00-03-00
00-03-00
00-07-06
00-10-00
00-05-05
00-10-00
00-17-06
00-00-10
00-08-04
Suma Tolis St. 031-19-05
Ite. 2 gall of Metheglen
It. one Lethe1- Jack
It. two Tubbs
It. one wooden hand boule
Ite. vinegar
It. 3 peuter botle8 quarts
It. one pinte peuter botle
Ite. one hatt
00-08-00
00-01 06
00-03-06
00-00-10
00-10-00
33-03-03
rec of Mr Winthrop Governr
Ite. 3 yrds of Cambrick
6 yrds & a h : of Loomeworke
2 Drinking homes
8 pr of shoes for men
6 p1 of gray stockings for men
6 pr of stockings for women
6 pr of stockings for children
10 yrds of Carsey
Thred
2000 of pinnes
6 Alls
one webb of blew gartering
2 knots of Tape
AN INVOICE OF ENGLISH GOODS SHIPPED TO
NEW ENGLAND ABOUT 1690.
In July, 1694, suit was brought in the Court at Boston, by
John Caxy of London, England, against Joseph Mallenson
of Boston, to whom the London merchant had consigned
various goods for the Boston market, the shipment consist-
ed of a great variety of clothing, fabrics, hardwear, imple-
ments, kitchen utensils and pewter. Mallenson not having
remitted for the goods, suit was bought and a copy of the
invoice was presented at court and is still preserved among
the Massachusetts State Archives. This document throws
considerable light on the furnishings of the colonial home
at that time and the prevailing scale of prices.
Invoice and Contents of Sundry Goods Laden on Board
the good ship called the Friendship Capt. John Ware Co-
mandr bound from this Port of London for Boston in New
England and goes consigned to Mr Joseph Mallenson for
the proper Accompt & Risque of John Caxy.
One
Large !
Fatt q1 Felt & Castor hatts as viz1 N°.
1.
'°. 1
3 doz :
Boyes Felts Edged & Lin’d
at 14/ p doz:
£2.02.0
2
3 doz:
ditto at 16 p doz :
2.08.0
3
3 doz:
ditto at 18 p doz :
2.14.0
4
3 doz :
ditto at 20/ p doz :
3.00.0
5
4 doz :
Mens felts at 34s
6.16.0
6
10 doz
: ditto at 40s p doz :
20.00.0
7
3 doz :
ditto at 48s p doz :
7.04.0
8
3 doz:
Mens Carrolinas at 8/6 p ps
15.06.0
1
4 doz:
Mens Castors at 5/6
13.04.0
2
3 doz:
ditto at 6/6
11.14.0
3
2 doz:
ditto at 7/9
9.06.0
4
2 doz:
ditto at 9/
10.16.0
(36)
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
37
5 1 doz: ditto at 11/ 6.12.0
6 doz : Rubers at 15d p doz : 0.07.6
6 doz : ditto at 2/6 p doz : 15.00.0
a Large Fatt Cost 12s 12.00.0
£112.16.6
One Small Case haire Powder, & Wash Balls No 1.
4 doz & halfe of Sweet haire Powder at 8d doz: 1.16.0
3 li of best Damask Powder at 3/ p li 0.09.0
7 gross Wash Balls at 8d p g* 2.16.0
a Case cost 2s 0.02.0
5.03.6
Two hhds Turnerie Ware N° 1 & 2 as viz1 & 7 bundles of
Steel Shoe Shovells & Spads N° 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7
3 Pottle Tun Canns at 3.09.00
2 doz : Fine pint Tun Canns at 18.00.00
6 quart Tunn Canns at 06.00
3 Three pint Tunn Canns at 04.00
4 Snap Mouse Traps 01.00
4 Double fall Mouse Traps at 02.02
2 Single fall Mouse Traps at 01.04
2 Large Single fall Mouse Traps at 01.06
4 Wooden Ratt Traps with Springs at 05.00
1 doz : Punch Strainers Sett up 02.09
9 doz : 6 best Maple Treachers at 30/ p doz : 1.06.11
1 doz : Milk Trayes at 11.00
3 doz : Platters at 6/ 18.00
3 doz : hand Boles at 3/6 10.06
1 doz : Porridge Dishes at 11.04
2 doz : handle Boles at 8/p doz : 16.00
2 doz : Carved Spoons at 6d p doz : 01.00
6 doz : Beer Tapps at 3d p doz : 01.06
5 gs 2 doz : plaine Spoons at 2/6 p gro. 12.11
1 gs Course haire Cottons kom’d at 2/9 1.13.00
1 gs Midle hayre cottons kom’d at 3/3 1.19.00
6 doz : Large haire Strainers at 2/ p doz 12.00
3 doz : Small haire ditto at 18d p doz 04.06
2 doz : Midle Bellows at 18/ p doz 1.16.00
1 doz: 6. Small ditto at 16/ p doz 1.04.00
1 doz : Sucking Bottles at 2s 12.00
1 doz : Large Ladles at T8 01.08
1 doz : Small ditto 01.00
38
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
12 doz : Steel Shod Shovells & Spads at 16/ 9.12.00
2 hhds Cost 7s each 14.00
25.03.10
One Case Lookeing Glasses N° 3 as
N° 1 6 Dressing Glasses 10 Inches in Sight at 5/ ps. 1.10.0
2 6 ditto at 6s ps 11 Inches in Sight 1.16.0
3 6 ditto at 7s ps 12 Inches in Sight 2.02.0
4 3 Glasses in Large Frames at 15/ ps 12 Inches 2.05.0
5 3 ditto at 18s ps 14 Inches in Sight 2.14.0
6 2 ditto at 22s ps 16 Inches in Sight 2.04.0
7 2 ditto at 28s ps 18 Inches in Sight 2.16.0
8 2 ditto at 35z ps 20 Inches 3.10.0
A Case Cost 5s 05.0
19.02.0
One Case N° 2 qfc as viz1
N° 1 2 Perriwiggs at 18s p ps 1.16.0
2 2 ditto at 2s 2.00.0
3 1 ditto at 25s 1.05.0
4 1 ditto at 30s 1.10.0
6.11.0
N° 1 2 doz : Child, woll hose at 5s p doz : 10.0
2 2 doz : ditto at 6/8 13.4
3 1 doz : ditto at 8/ 08.0
4 1 doz : ditto at 10/ 10.0
5 2 doz : Womens Woll ditto at 9/6 19.0
6 2 doz : ditto at 10/6 1.01.0
7 1 doz ditto at 11/6 11.6
8 1 doz ditto at 13/6 13.6
9 1 doz ditto Mens Wool at 13/ 13.0
10 2 doz ditto at 15/6 1.11.0
112 doz ditto at 18/ 1.16.0
12 1 doz ditto at 20/ 1.00.0
13 1 doz ditto black at 22/ 1.02.0
14 1 doz Womens Worst ditto at 29/ 1.09.0
15 1 doz Mens Short Worst Mixt at 36/ 1.16.0
16 1 doz ditto at 38/ 1.18.0
17 1 doz ditto at 43/ 2.03.0
18 1 doz ditto black at 40/ 2.00.0
19 1 doz Mens Mixt Role at 45/ 2.05.0
20 1 doz ditto at 52/ p doz 2.12.0
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
39
21 1 doz ditto bla: & blew at 52s 2.12.0
1 Case Cost wth Cords 2/ 02.0
28.05.4
Thirty One Quoiles of Cordage Con1 as vixd
N°. 1
3 Inch 1/4 qt
3.02.09
2 1 ditto
4 Inches
4.01.00
3 1 ditto
5 Inches
6.01.06
4 1 ditto
5 3/4 Inches
8.02.02
5 1 ditto
6
9.01.25
6 1 Quoile
3
2.03.25
7 1 Quoile
2 3/4
2.02.08
8 1 Quoile
2 1/4
1.03.13
9 1 Quoile
2 1/2
2.00.10
10 1 Quoile
2 1/2
2.00.12
11 1 Quoile
21/4
1.03.23
12 1 ditto
2 1/2
2.00.17
13 1 ditto
2 3/4
2.02.04
14 1 ditto
3 Inches
3.01.02
15 2 ditto
2
2.00.25
16 2 ditto
2
2.00.12
17 2 ditto
2
2.00.21
18 2 ditto
2
2.00.13
19 2 ditto
1 Inch 1/2
1.02.24
20 2 ditto
1 1/2
1.01.13
21 3 ditto
1 1/4
1.03.20
22 2 ditto
13/4
1.03.11
23 3 Quoiles
1 1/4
1.02.27
1 Cable
8 Inches 3/4
19.00.14
2
5 1/2
7.02.26
1 ditto
4 1/2
5.01.22
1 ditto
4 3/2
5.03.07
1 Quoile
2 3/4
2.01.11
1 Quoile
2 3/4
2.01.11
1 Quoile
2 1/4
1.01.08
For a Lyghter
to carry it on board
15.00
One hhd N° 4 q1 wro1 Brass & wro1 Iron worke as vizd
12 brass Kettles q1 1 C. 0.4n at 15d p li
7.05.0
2 pr of 8 Square Monument Candlesticks
15.0
2 pr ditto at 6s
12.0
2 pr ditto at 5s
10.0
2 pr ditto at 4s
08.0
2 pr ditto at 3/6
07.0
40 DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
2 pr ditto at 3/ 06.0
2 pr of 4 square ditto at 7/ 14.0
2 pr of ditto at 6s 12.0
2 pr of Round ditto at 3/6 07.0
2 pr of ditto at 4s 08.0
2 pr ditto at 4s 6 09.0
2 pr ditto at 5/ 10.0
2 pr ditto at 5/6 11.0
2 pr ditto at 6/6 13.0
6 doz : Iron Spr Candlesticks at 5/6 1.13.0
2 Fine Mortars & Pestells at 4/ 08.0
2 ditto at 4/6 09.0
2 ditto at 5/6 11.0
2 ditto at 7/3 14.6
1 doz. Flower Boxes 11.0
1 doz Pepper Boxes 06.0
5 doz Brass Snuffers at 7/6 1.17.6
6 Snuffers Stands at 10.6
4 Snuffers Panns at 04.8
1 doz : Beife Forkes 07.0
1 doz Grid. Irons wta 98 Ribbs 17.0
18 plaine Bellows 1.03.0
4 doz : Alkomy Spoons at 12/9 11.0
2 doz : ditto at 2/3 04.6
1 doz : Brass Extinguishers 03.0
6 brass Ladles at 6s 6tl 03.3
6 ditto at 9d 04.6
6 ditto at 14d 07.0
6 Slices at 7d 03.6
6 ditto at 9 04.6
2 doz : brass Save-alls at 5s p doz 10.0
3 doz ditto at 4/ 12.0
3 doz ditto at 3/6 10.6
2 doz ditto at 3/ 06.0
1 doz dubble Iaggers 06.0
1 doz : ditto at 06.0
2 doz : Single ditto at 3s 9 07.6
2 doz : Small mincers at 7s 14.0
1 doz Large ditto at 15.6
1 doz Chopers 12.0
1 doz Cleavers 17.6
3 doz Small padlocks at 5s 6 16.6
2 doz : ditto at 6s p doz 12.0
2 doz : ditto at 7/9 p doz 15.6
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
41
1 doz ditto at 09.6
10 doz Scuers wth fraimes 16.6
2 doz : Small Spr. Locks at 8s p doz 16.0
2 doz Duble Spr Locks at 17/ p doz 1.14.0
4 bundles Frying Pans ql 1 C. 1. 26H at 45/ 3.09.6
1 hhd Cost 6s 06.0
41.11.5
One Trunk N° 1 q1 Nothing butt Buttons as viz1
N°. 1 12 gs Gimp Fallow Brest at 9d p gro 09.0
2 48 gs Gymp Fallow Coatt at l.lld 2.04.0
3 34 baggs Coat Fillers ql 136 gro : 18d p gro : 10.04.0
4 10 gross bla : haire best at 20d 16.8
5 10 baggs best Pillers Coats q1 40 gro : at 23d 3.16.8
6 24 gross Silke browne best at 23d 2.06.0
7 13 baggs ql 52 gross of Accor. Coats 2/6 p gs 6.10.0
8 12 gross bla: hayre Milo Coats 3/3d 1.19.0
9 20 gross Cutt haire Coats at 3/10 p gs 3.16.8
10 30 gross Large Silke Coats at 3/10 5.15.0
A Trunk & Cords Cost 15/ 15.0
38.12.0
One Large hhd N° 3 ql of Tinnerie Ware as viz1
6 Lanthorns at 2s 3d p L
13.6
5 ditto at 21d
10.6
6 ditto at 18d
09.0
2 Large fish kettles & plates at 5s
10.0
2 Small ditto at 3s
06.0
2 doz Slices at 2/6
05.0
6 Large pastry panns at 22d
11.0
6 Small ditto at 14d
07.0
3 Setts Kettles at
1.01.0
3 doz : Pockett Graters at 2s p doz
06.0
3 doz ditto at 20d
05.0
1 doz Large Square pudding pans at 14s
14.0
1 doz ditto Small at 12d
12.0
6 paire of Snuffers & panns at 18d p
09.0
6 hanging Candlesticks at 12d
06.0
2 doz : Large Corringers at 4s
08.0
3 doz Midle ditto at 3s
09.0
2 doz : Small ditto at 2/
04.0
6 Large Funnells at 9d ps
04.6
2 doz quart ditto at 6/ p doz
12.0
42
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
2 doz pint ditto at 4/ p doz 08.0
2 doz ditto at 2/6 05.0
2 doz ditto at 2/ 04.0
1 doz Large Sauce panns at 8d p ps 08.0
2 doz: quart ditto at 6d p ps 12.0
2 doz : point ditto at 4/6 09.0
2 doz: Flower Boxes at 3/6 07.0
2 doz : pepper boxes at 2/6 05.0
4 Large Dripping pans at 2/3 » 09.0
6 Small ditto at 20d 10.0
1 doz Quart potts at 6d ps 06.0
2 doz : pint ditto at 4/ p doz 08.0
1 doz : Large Round Pudding panns 13d 13.0
1 doz ditto Small at lld 11.0
1 doz : Candlesticks at 6d ps 06.0
6 Planish Candlesticks at 8d 04.0
1 doz Casting Ladles at 4d ps 04.0
1 doz : bread Graters at 7d ps 07.0
1 doz : ditto at 4d ps 04.0
1 doz : Tinder boxes & at 8s 08.0
8 Candle Boxes at 14d ps 09.4
6 round Fish plates at lld ps 05.6
6 Cullendars at 16d ps 08.0
1 doz halfe pint potts at 2d ps 02.0
A Large Casque Cost 9s 09.0
18.04.4
One Bayle of Stuffs & N° 8 ql as viz1
N° 1 12 ps Worst. Fancies at 20s 12.00.0
2 3 Woollen Shades at 22s ps 3.00.0
3 6 playne Silke Crapes at 23/ ps 6.18.0
4 6 Stript Woi'st. Crapes at 23/ 6.18.0
5 2 Strip’! Silke Crapes at 26/ 2.12.0
6 4 Spotted Strip’t Silke Crapes at 26/ 5.04.0
7 2 Sattin Strip’t Crapes at 28/ 2.16.0
8 10 Strip’t Druggetts at 28/ 14.00.0
9 3 Woollen Damask at 29" 4.07.0
10 6 Mixt Serges at 30/ 9.00.0
11 2 Strip’t ditto at 33s 3.06.0
13 10 Silke Fancies at 36/ ps 18.00.0
14 6 EfQgianes at 38/ ps 11.08.0
15 6 Silke Damaske at 46/ 13.16.0
16 3 Strip’t Cambletts at 46s 6.18.0
17 1 Mock Calliminco at 3 3.00.0
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
43
18
19
20
21
22
23
peices
1 Right ditto
3 Role ps Silke Fancies ql 37:37: 37 1/2
is 111 1/2 yd at 18d
1 ps Red Flannel ql 20)
1 ps Yello ditto q* 21)
1 ps ditto ql 25)
1 ps white q1 44)
92
110 yds at 14d
A Coard & Canvis paper & packing
4 doz : of Course hose in ditto Bale
One Drume Fatt N° 2 Containing Pewter as viz1
12 Pottle Tankards at 3T0d ps
12 Quart ditto at 3s
24 Midle ditto at 2/6
24 Small ditto at 2/
12 doz : Large Poringers at 9s6d p. doz
12 doz : Small ditto at 8/
3 pr New-fashion’d Candlesticks at 4s
3 pr ditto at 3s
2 pr Round ditto at 2s10d
a Fatt Cost
4.00.0
8.07.3
6.08.4
1.04.0
146.14.7
2.06.0
1.16.0
3.00.0
2.08.0
5.14.0
4.16.0
12.0
09.0
05.8
07.0
One Drume Fatt No 3 q* more Pewter viz1
18 Large Chamber Potts at 2/ 10s ps 2.11.0
30 Middle ditto at 2s dd 3.10.0
40 Small ditto at 2s 4.00.0
12 doz Alkney Spoons at 2/9 1.13.0
24 doz Powder ditto at 2/3d p doz 2.14.0
12 Large Salts at 2S2 ps 1.06.0
24 Middle ditto at 20d ps 2.00.0
48 Small ditto at 12d ps 2.08.0
18 Basons ql 32 1/2 at 12d 1.12.6
2 doz : Sawcers at 9s p doz 18.0
4 doz Small ditto at 7s p doz 1.08.0
2 Pottle Wine Measure Potts at 5/6 11.0
6 Quart ditto at 2/8 16.0
6 Pint ditto Potts at 22d ps 11.0
6 halfe Pint ditto at 14d 07.0
6 Quartern ditto Potts at 9d p ps 04.6
a ffat Cost 7s 07.0
One halfe Bareli Fatt N° 4 Conf more pewter
N° A 78 Dishes qt 265!i at 9d 1/2 10.09.9 1/2
A ffat Cost 3S6 03.6
£76.02.5 1/2
44
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
One Bayle of Lincy Woolsie Cont 30 ps
No 7 at 31s ps
46.10.0
Canvis &ca
1.07.0
47.17.0
Two Large Bayles of Kersyes N° 4 : 5 viz1
N° A 3 Browns) .
1 Gray ) at 26 P ps'
5.04.0
B 3 Browne) . m
1 Gray ) at 28 ps
5.12.0
C 1 Browne) . Qn«
3 Grays ) at ^
6.00.0
D 4 Browns at 31s
6.04.0
E 4 Browns at 32s
6.08.0
F 3 Browns) . Qrs
2 Grays ) at
10.10.0
G 4 Browns) of 07s
2 Grays ) at
11.02.0
H 4 Browns) Qqs
2 Grays ) 3l 88
11.08.0
I 6 Browns at 39s
K 3 Browns)
11.14.0
2 Drabbs ) at 42s
1 Gray )
12.12.0
L 6 Honly Reds at 42s
M 2 Grays )
12.12.0
1 Drabb ) f 4os
3 Browns) at 48 ps
6 Nap’t )
N 3 Browns)
25.16.0
2 Grays ) at 58s ps
1 Drabb )
14.08.0
0 3 Grays”8) at 555 PS 20 yds L°ng
Canvis Cord Paper & packing 38' p bayle
16.10.0
3.16.0
159.16.0
One Bayle of Cottons of Severall Coders viz1
6 White Cottons at 15/
6 White ditto at 20/
4.10.0
6.00.0
6 Red ditto)
5 Blew ditto)
5 Cloth Cullerd ditto) at 17s p ps
19.11.0
5 Ashe Cullerd ditto)
2 Yellow ditto)
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
45
4 Red ditto at 23s ps 4.12.0
1 Blew ditto at 24/ 1.04.0
Canvis & Packing 1.18.0
37.15.0
One hhd N° 5 Con1 Sundry Lotts of Goods as Viz1
12 hogskin Saddles Stirrups, Leathers bridles,
Girts & Snaffels at 14s 8.08.0
N° 18 li whited Browne Thread at 2/3 13.6
20 li ditto at 2/6 15.0
22 li ditto at 2/10 17.0
24 li ditto at 3/3 19.6
26 li ditto at 3/8 1.02.0
28 li ditto at 46 p li 1.04.0
4 : 15 3 li Nunns Thread at 6s 18.0
5 : 10 3 li ditto at 7s p li L01.0
6 : 10 3 li ditto at 8/ 1.04.0
8 : 10 1 li ditto at 10s p li 10.0
9: 10 Hi ditto at 12/ 12.0
12:10 1 li ditto at 16/ 16.0
N° 1 6 doz best Brown Thread at 22s p doz 6.12.0
2 3 doz Cull1- ditto at 26/ p doz 3.08.0
3 4 doz: blew & Collerd Tape at 9/6 1.18.0
4 2 doz : blew & Collerd filletting at 13/6 1.07.0
5 1 doz : White filletting at 15 p 15.0
6 2 doz fine white Twist at 3/4d 06.8
7 2 doz Narrow Holland Tape at T p doz 14.0
8 2 doz broad ditto at 10/ p doz 1.00.0
9 3 Gross Cotton 6d Ribbin at 10s p gro 1.10.0
10 1 ps broad Strip’! 12d Ribbin at 4/6 04.6
11 2 doz Pinns at 6/8 p doz 12.0
12 3 doz. ditto at 7/2 p doz 1.01.6
13 4 Mille Needles at 5/ p mille 1.00.0
14 2 Gross Womens Brass Thimbles at 5/6 11.0
15 6 doz : Mens Steel ditto at 7s p gs 03.6
16 6 doz. home Combs at 14d 07.0
17 6 doz : ditto at 18d 09.0
18 6 doz : ditto at 22d 11.0
19 2 doz Ivory Combs at 3/6 p doz 07.0
20 2 doz ditto at 6/8 12.0
21 Old Brass Curtaine Rings at 14d 07.0
22 2 doz. Small Inckhornes at 20d 03.4
23 1 doz : Large ditto 02.9
24 1 doz Large Sands at 4s 04.0
46
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
25 2 gro : Tin brest Buttons 12d 02.0
26 6 gro : Large ditto at 15d 07.6
27 6 gro : ditto at 18d p gro 09.0
28 2 gro : Ell Thread Laces at 2/4 04.8
29 2 gro : ditto yd &1/2 at 3/8 06.0
30 1 gro : ditto Silke 2 yds at 30s 1.10.0
1 hhd Cost 5/ 05.0
Trunk N° 2
316 gro : Large White Wastcoat Buttons
at 15d 07.6
32 6 gro : fine Small ditto at 18d 09.0
33 2 gro : gilt sleeve buttons at 3/4 06.8
34 1 doz : bla : Velvitt Markes lin’d wth 14.0
35 1 doz : best ditto at 15/ 15.0
36 1 doz: best ditto lin’d wth Silke at 22s 1.02.0
37 1 doz : Callico quilted Caps at 9s 09.0
38 1 doz : Holland ditto at 12/ p doz 12.0
39 18 yds Grey Lace at 3d 04.6
40 20 yds ditto at 4d p yd 06.8
41 33 yds ditto at 4d 1/2 12.4 1/2
42 15 yds ditto at 5d p yd 06.3
43 12 yds ditto at 6d 06.0
44 16 yds ditto at 8d 10.8
45 34 yds bla: Silke bone Lace at 5d 1/2 p yd 15.7
46 42 yds ditto at 7d 1/2 1.06.3
47 24 yds ditto at 12d 1.04.0
48 16 yds ditto at 13d 17.4
49 18 yds ditto at 14d 1.01.0
50 2 Gro: Silke Bindins at 18/6 p gro: 1.17.0
51 2 Gro : Silke Galunes at 18/ 1.16.0
52 1 gro : Narrow : Black Silk purie for Tippett C5.0
53 2 gro: Brord ditto at 14s p gro: 1.08.0
54 1 gro : White, Thready brord gause purie
at 10/6 10.6
55 2 doz : black & White Net Gause at 11/ p doz. 1.02.0
56 1 doz : black Mourning gause at 12.0
57 1 doz : White ditto at 12s 12.0
58 2 doz : White Thread gause at 12/ 1.04.0
59 2 doz : black Silke ditto at 13/ 1.06.0
60 3 doz : Women Silke Girdles wth Buckles 6/ 18.0
61 2 doz : Long ditto Copper Tassells at 3/9 07.6
62 1 doz: Rich Silke & Silver Tassle ditto 12/ 12.0
63 1 doz : best ditto at 15s 15.0
64 1 doz : Romall handkerchiffs at 16s p doz 16.0
IN THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY
47
65 1 doz : Silke ditto at 20s p doz 1.00.0
66 1 doz : best Large ditto at 23s 1.03.0
67 4 doz: black Moyhaire ring at 6/ 1.04.0
68 4 doz : Deep ditto at 7s p doz 1.08.0
69 2 doz : Copper Cull1’ & purled ditto at 6/ p doz 12.0
70 4 doz : Cuilr Mixt ditto at 7s 1.08.0
71 4 doz : Cloth Culler : bla : & Scarlett
ditto at 8/ 12.0
72 2 doz : Deep bla : Duble ditto at 9S6 19.0
73 18 doz : Nar : fringe to Sett on ye Top
of Fringe 20d 1.10.0
74 18 yds White Corded Thred fringe at 10d yd 15.0
75 13 oz. 1/2 bla: bella. Silke fringe at 25d 1.02.6
76 27 oz : best Nar : & Deep ditto at 21d 2.07.3
77 12 oz : Copper Cull1' Nar : & Deep ditto at 22d 1.02.0
78 18 oz : 1/16 d° & white Nar: & deep
Mixtd. 2s 1.16.1 1/2
79 21 oz 1/2 Clo : Cull1' blew & white Nar
& Deep 2 l/2d 2.08.4
80 21 oz 1/2 Clo: Cullr green & white corded
d° 2/4d 2.10.2
81 17 oz: 1/4 3/16 bla: Corded ditto at 2/
pdoz 1.14.10 1/2
82 1 gro 1/2 Silke bread to Sett at Bottom
of fringe 14s 1.01.0
83 5 ps ferrett 6d Ribbon at 7s ps 1.15.0
84 lgro: bla: ld Taffety Ribbon at 7s 07.0
85 2 gro : ditto 2d ditto at 16 p gro 1.12.0
86 12 ps Dutch 7/4 Ribbins for binding
Drowls 20d 1.00.0
87 4 ps 6d Taffety Ribbon at 5/ 1.00.0
88 4 ps 8d ditto at 9 ps 1.16.0
89 1 ps 10d ditto at 11.0
90 1 ps 12d ditto 13.0
91 4 ps Double Love Ribben 6dat 6/ 1.04.0
92 2 ps 8d ditto at 8 16.0
93 1 ps 10d ditto at (?) 09.6
94 2 ps white Span. 6d ditto at 8/6 17.0
95 1 ps ditto 8d at 10 10.0
96 3 doz : Sattin Stripes 8d Ribbon at 6s 18.0
97 2 doz Cloth Cullr & purple Figur’d 10d
ditto 8s 16.0
98 2 doz: blew & Green 12d ditto at 11s 1.02.0
99 2 doz Copper Cullr’d & bla : 14d ditto at 13s 1.06.0
100 81i Clo: Cull1' Silke wUl a Little bla : at 17/6 7.00.0
48
DOMESTIC LIFE IN NEW ENGLAND
101 1 Childs Peake at 6/ 06.0
102 1 Womans Laced head dress at 10s 10.0
103 1 ditto Laced at 13/ 13.0
104 1 Alamode Drowle Trim’d at 2s wth bla purl 02.0
105 1 Tippett ditto at 2/4d 02.4
106 1 Best ditto at 6/8 Laced wth bla: Silk ? 06.0
107 2 doz : New fashon’d Peake Wyers at 18d
P doz 03.0
108 2 doz : Cornitt Wyers ditto at 2/ p doz 04.0
109 4 doz : Comode Wyers ditto at 4/ p doz 16.0
110 17 Roles at 5d p ps 07.1
111 4 doz New Fason’d pass Wyers at 10s 03.4
112 1 gro: Strip’d Worsted at 9s p gro 09.0
a Trunke & Coards Cost 12/ 12.0
59.18.0
One Bayle of Linning Cloth N° 3 Cont as viz1
20
40:2
19:2
20
39
330:2
20
39:2
39:2
17
18
394
19:2
40:
39
20
20
435
19:
19:2
20
19:2
20
313:2
19:2
19
19:2
19:2
40
392
20:2
20
19:2
19:
19:2
1864:2
17
20
62
40
40:
932:1
20
38:2
60
19:2
19:2
19
40
38
19:2
39:2
37
20
20
19:2
20:
19
19
19:2
20
19:2
20
19
20
18:2
39:2
19
19
19:2
20:2
19:2
24
19
19:2
20:2
19:
40
19
19:2
19:2
19
330:2
394
435
313:2
392
Is 932 Ells 1/4 of Kamells cloth at 6d p ell
23.6.0
85 50
60 86
69 43
73 68
78 101
42
42 43
49 78
77 44
91 is 1129 of
Brown Oxenbrigs at 50H
p Role 1500
ells to a Role at 8d p ell
37.12.8
60.18.8
£1127.17.7
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